


The Soil Also

by smaychel



Category: One Piece
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-27
Updated: 2011-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-26 14:37:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/284437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaychel/pseuds/smaychel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zoro thinks about the things he's learned at Arabasta. Sanji thinks about Zoro.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Soil Also

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the Arabasta story arc.
> 
> Warning: contains references to food issues/disordered eating

 

 

 _Breathe_.

 

They’re sailing through a cold zone, and the air is sharp and bright like a ringing in the ears. Zoro meditates on the weathered deck of the Going Merry and tries to remember what it felt like to be dying. He breathes. He thinks about how it felt to know, to know it in his skin and his lungs, to taste it with his katana. Beneath him, the wooden deck. The sea. He sits, unmoving, for two days, and tries to feel his swords without touching them. The power to cut and not to cut. The power to sit still. If his nakama approach, he’s unaware of it. On the third day it starts to snow.

 

He tries to hear the snow breathing.

 

*

 

You focus on gutting fish, because Zoro’s a fucking idiot and you’re not going to waste time worrying over some fucker who sits out on deck until they’re covered in snow three inches deep. Nami would never worry her nakama by recklessly endangering her own health, so she’s going to get the best god damn meal you can pull together from the shitty remains of your food stores (and seriously, you need a lock for the fridge before you snap and kick Luffy’s food-stealing ass half way across the Grand Line).

 

You resolutely don’t think about how it’s been three days now since he last ate. You know this, because you always know exactly what gets eaten on this ship, and when, and by whom.  Even with your idiot captain’s attempts at thieving, you always know. You wonder, briefly, if Zoro’s doing it on purpose – fucking with your head because he knows, _he knows_ , that shit like this gets right under your skin, but you dismiss that thought pretty quick. He’s been distant since Arabasta, mumbling about transcension and katana. There’s something on his mind, something that he has to get straight in his head the only way he knows how. Now that, you can empathise with. You’ve had your own shit to deal with since Arabasta, most of it not even connected to the fighting. You try to block out any thought of Erumalu, because _Jesus Christ_ … But it’s been three fucking days, and when he’s like this even the most basic demands of his body – like food, remember _food_ , Zoro, you fucking idiot? – just don’t even register.

 

Well screw him, you think, pulling pale fish bones from pink flesh. So he gets frostbite, loses a couple of toes. The guy’s a fucking monster, he’ll survive.

 

“Thanks Sanji, dear,” Nami says as she sweeps off with the meal you’ve painstakingly prepared for her. Charming. Somewhat condescending. Good natured. You watch the gentle sway of her hips as she goes, and repeat every ingredient you’ve used today back to yourself in your head. You repeat the ingredients you have left in the stores. You already know them, but a list is like a talisman. You’re precise. A good chef is always precise. You’ve nearly finished your internal stock check when a noise from the doorway behind you –

 

“Oi, Love Cook.” Zoro’s voice is all unused-raw, it makes you want to wince.  It makes you want a cigarette, and damn it, you never smoke in your kitchen. You realise you’re avoiding turning to look at him. Fuck that. You’re not scared to look the green haired son of a bitch in the eye.

 

There’s something about the way Zoro always looks at you – serious and amused all at once. You never know how to react to it. For now you lean back on your elbows against the counter, a picture of nonchelance. “I suppose you want some food, then.”

 

He stares at you longer than necessary, like he’s trying to work something out. You think you preferred it when he was out in the fucking snow. “Yeah,” he says eventually. “Good idea.” It occurs to you briefly that the lot of them would starve to death without you, and for a moment you remember hunger so deep it felt like your bones were empty.

 

You remember fitting your hands in the spaces between your ribs. Feeling so small, so helpless against the vicious, all-consuming tides of this world, against the whims of the ocean. You begin to list ingredients in your head again. If your hand shakes as it reaches for your paring knife, Zoro doesn’t mention it.

 

You make him soup – light but warm, easy on the stomach. You only let him have it in small portions, make him take it slow. “It’s been three days. You’ll make yourself sick if you go too fast,” you tell him. Because you know. And that’s another thing he doesn’t mention.

 

He still watches you, though. Mouthful after slow mouthful. He doesn’t say a word, but that’s not unusual. The two of you always seem to communicate by merely staring at each other. It’s no wonder his voice is so damn rough – must be the cumulated effect of years of disuse catching up with him. He watches every flicker of your face as he eats like it’s a challenge, until you have to turn away. “Idiot,” you bite out, and scrub loudly at the dishes.

 

“We’re going to talk about it now,” Zoro says eventually, in a tone that is in no way a question. When you turn back he’s pushed his bowl away and he’s standing, the long wooden table a barrier between you. His expression gives nothing away, so you try to keep your own usual lazy indifference firmly in place.

 

“About what?”

 

“About that night. In the desert beyond Erumalu.”

 

And all of a sudden you feel so fucking weary. It’s not been long enough since all that shit at Arabasta – your bones are still healing, for fuck’s sake. You sink your hands in your pockets. Your fingers itch. “All right. But not here. If we’re gonna do this then I need a smoke.”

 

You need something to focus on, to take your mind off that night, off the image burned into your memory of Zoro’s hands wound in Ace’s hair, the way their mouths moved together. The way it was more like fighting than kissing, and the way Ace’s touch looked like it would burn.

 

You strike a match and light your cigarette, and let it hang indolently from your lips as you climb up to the lookout behind Zoro. It’s a tight fit with two of you – the smoke you exhale clouds directly into his face, but if he minds he says nothing. The snow has finally stopped falling, thank god, but the air up here is fucking freezing. Zoro doesn’t seem to notice. This close it’s impossible to look away from him, and when his eyes lock with yours the memory rushes vivid and sudden into your mind.

 

Zoro. Ace. They were pressed chest to solid chest, no space between them for a grain of fucking sand. Your brain catches for a moment on the thought of being _between them_ , and oh jesus fucking christ, it would be like being caught between a storm and the sea. It would be like being one of them – a fucking monster with the rest of humanity in the dirt at your feet. It was after dark, long after the fire had hushed down to embers.  They were pressed together up against one of the rocks, their hands underneath each other’s clothing, and at first, oh fuck, at first you thought they were fighting. A stab of adrenaline as you prepared to leap to your nakama’s defence, should he need you. Luffy’s brother or no, fucking devil fruit fire fists or no, you’d have kicked that bastard all the way to East Blue if he managed to survive a fight with Zoro.

 

When you realised, a second later, what was really happening, your jaw hit the fucking sand.

 

And let’s get this clear, it’s not because he’s a man. You’re a pirate, for god’s sake, you’ve seen your fair share of cock. And normally, yeah, the silent, brooding, intense, toned-as-fuck type? You’d be all over that, green hair or no green hair. But it’s _Zoro_. You’d always assumed he was, you don’t fucking know, _married to his katana_ or some such bullshit. All he ever does is train, it’s all he talks about, all he thinks about – or so you’d assumed. There are times you’ve had to practically force him to take a break and eat something. Deaf to his own body. That’s what you thought of him, if you thought of him at all. Sculpted like a god, but deaf as stone.

 

Fuck.

 

You don’t say any of this, of course. “So you screwed the captain’s big brother,” you say instead. “What’s it got to do with me?”

 

“That’s what I’m trying to work out.” Zoro’s gaze is as intense and unwavering as ever. You sigh through your teeth.

 

“Does Luffy know?”

 

He looks away from you for what feels like the first time since he came in from the snow. “I don’t know.”

 

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

 

“He’s not _my_ brother - it’s between them. If Luffy has an issue, he’d let me know.”

 

You have to give him that. Luffy’s many things, but subtle is sure as shit not one of them. For a moment there’s silence. The ash from the glowing tip of your cigarette crumbles, falls, is lost on the wind. The stars above you, when you look up at them, are incredibly clear in the darkness. Everything is so very still, tonight.

 

“Will you see him again?”

 

He frowns. “Probably. He’s Luffy’s brother, after all.”

 

“That’s not what I meant. I meant, will you…” _Will you do it again,  Zoro, will you fuck him up against a rock, let him put his hands and his lips on you, tell me whose fucking name will you be moaning in the night-_

 

“Sanji. It’s not like that.”

 

“Then what is it like?”

 

“It’s nothing. It happened once, that’s all it is.”

 

You lick your lips, and consider. “Was he using you? Do you want me to kick his ass?” Your tone is half-chivalrous, half-mocking. It’s something you’re very, very good at.

 

He smiles. At last he smiles, and it’s exasperated and wonderful. It makes you want to smile back, two idiots grinning at each other at the top of a lookout on a lonely ship in the middle of a vast, fucking monstrous ocean.  He shakes his head. “We were using each other. That’s all.”

 

“So I don’t have to defend your honour or anything?”

 

“Idiot.”

 

He glances at you, and you remember the way his eyes caught yours, up against that rock out in the desert. You remember how cold you were even then, but there was fire in his eyes. Ace’s hands on him, Ace’s sweat on Zoro’s skin, and you thought he’d look away, thought he’d have some fucking shame and be embarrassed to be caught like that, but he just stared at you – lips parted, panting and wild.

 

You stared back. Ace either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Zoro’s rough fingers were wound through his hair, which was stark black against Zoro’s skin, and he mouthed at Zoro’s neck. When he bit down hard, Zoro gasped like it burnt. “Sanji.” When he said your name, his voice was broken and his eyes so heavy lidded you had to look away.

 

“Sanji,” he says now, under a different set of stars.

 

*

 

 _Breathe in._

 

The air is so clear up here that Zoro thinks he can hear the ocean breathing, the stars, the ship. He looks out to sea. Beside him Sanji stands so close that he brushes against Zoro’s side where his swords lie quiet and still. He thinks he feels them sing. _The power to cut and not to cut._

 

Sanji is so pale tonight. So silver against the sky, so slender. Brittle as ice. Zoro turns towards him, and he sees the stub of his cigarette fall from his fingers. He thinks he’s starting to understand.

 

There are some things a man doesn’t need to be brought to the brink of death to be aware of, and the way Sanji’s looking at him now is one of them.

 

The boughs of the orange trees droop under the snow’s weight.

 

“Sanji,” he says again, low and intimate. “ _Nakama_.” Sanji shudders at the word, Zoro can feel his breath shake from him. “You could have told me.” He wraps big hands around Sanji’s slender waist, thumbs the hollows of his hips.

 

 _Clear your mind_ , Zoro thinks. _Know that you’re dying._ He draws Sanji forward a step, and then a step.

 _Open your eyes_.

 

Exhale.


End file.
